Deepwater Horizon

Last year, 205 million gallons of oil were dumped into the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. In his info-tastic video Oil'd, Chris Harmon poses a provocative question: What would we have done with the oil if it had never been spilled? His answers are staggering, but also underline human dependency on oil. Sure, we could have done a lot with those 205 million gallons, but maybe we could have done even more -- or less.
(via Reddit)

We've heard a lot from Aquaman in the months since the beginning of the Deepwater Horizon oil leak, whether it's an anonymous internet photoshop, or the artwork of Kate Beaton (but nothing from the Sub-Mariner, hmm).

However, (as I realized in a moment of contextual horror while watching my Justice League Unlimited dvds on the train yesterday morning) he's known about the dangers of oil rig destruction for six years now. Or, at least, J. M. DeMatteis, writer of the Justice League Unlimited episode Ultimatum has.

The "Top Kill" effort to plug the Deepwater Horizon oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico has successfully stopped the flow of oil and gas, a U.S. Coast Guard admiral told the LA Times this morning.

It's not a sure thing yet -- BP's chief operating officer for exploration and production told the New York Times that "it would be a day or more before it was clear whether the top kill had worked," and neither the government nor BP has made an official declaration -- but it sounds encouraging.

Yet more bad news about the Deepwater Horizon oil leak: The amount of oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico is more than ten times greater than previously thought, according to a recent analysis.

Recently, BP succumbed to mounting pressure to release their underwater video of the leak so outside experts could use it to make estimates. NPR took them up on it: they assembled a group of experts to analyze the video. Their conclusion? The oil leak is already far worse than the Exxon Valdez: Whereas the official estimate pegs the BP leak at 5,000 barrels a day, NPR's analysis concludes that 70,000 barrels have been leaking each day, plus or minus 20 percent.

To end the day on a somewhat downbeat note: In response to the mounting pressure surrounding their lack of transparency about the Deepwater Horizon oil leak, BP has released the first underwater video of oil and gas gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, 5,000 feet below the surface.

While we applaud BP for releasing the video, it highlights, in instantly graspable terms, just how bad it is down there: